Opening Repertoire: The King's Indian Setup!

Intro: 

Hello, everyone! I know it had been a long time since I made my last blog because of my exams but anyways I am back! Welcome to the last part of the series "Opening Repertoire"! So, today we are going to explore an Opening for black which is very useful to counter many lines by white. The Opening is the King's Indian Defense. 

Details: 

Now, This Opening is both simple and......hard‽ I mean it is hard of you try to memorize all the variations, main lines, sidelines. But it is simple and fun if you follow the basic ideas. Here, look for your self!

So, you can play this against d4 and even the other lines. But to play this against e4 you need to learn an Opening called the pirc defence. And it looks like this...

Alright and there are a few ideas you gotta remember while playing the King's Indian. They are--

• Play the setup that I will show you after this. 
• When ever you see e4 on the board respond with d6. That's why we play the pirc instead of the King's Indian Defense in the King's pawn.
• Develop your knight to c6 or d7. d7 is a safe and solid option while c6 is the aggressive line but a bit complicated but still playable.
• Develop your Bishop to g4 and if h3 then take the knight that will endup of f3 in many variations; and if you encounter h6 even before Bg4, don't play it unless you are 100 elo, instead you can develop you bishop on b4 after b6.
• In some variations you can skip the development of the priest and the horsey and attack immediately with e5. This one is a bit difficult but I will explain. 
• Though you can play e5 in some variations, as I said it can be a bit uncomfortable so there I will recommend knight a3 and then e5.

And as I said here is the position you want to get.

And as for this blog, we will look at the variations in the d4 line. So, main line is as follows...

And here in this line bishop g4 is fine and after that you should play knight to d7 (or c6). But I like the move e5 here.

Now the reason why it is not losing a pawn is because of the following line.

But this line can be a bit overwhelming so I recommend a strange looking move Na3. And BTW the reason for it being uncomfortable because after exchanging the queen's the tricky move Bg4 followed by Nd5 attacking the knight on f6. Now there are two main reasons I prefer Na3. First is that after he castles now you can go e5 but this time you don't have to worry the pawn f6 since it is now protected by the knight, and so in the exchange line after the queen's are traded it is not that problematic. Second, is that if white advances with d5 black can hope up with the knight to the square c5. This pressures the centre and I like to get into such positions. From now on White's plan will be to attack on the queen side and if he succeds he may disrupt your pawn sturture or might win some material advantage. But If you do on the kingside, then you will just finish his king off. Alright let's look at the classical variation farther. You're attacking the e4 pawn so white will defend it with Qc2. And since we have played our knight to that important square, you can now prevent white from expanding much on the queen side with the move a5 which stops b4. If he now tries a3 push b4 and now if b4 en passant it, If you don't know what that is it's okay learn it later. Going back instead if he plays Be3 trying to get rid of your horse, just play b6 and remember his bishop is a good bishop and so getting rid of it is not good. We play b6 because now if he takes we recapture and he is paralyzed even more on the queenside while we are maintaining a solid structure. Instead if Bg5 the kick it away and the same idea. Then your plan include moves like knight h5 followed by f5 challenging the centre. 

Now let's look at the Everback variation.

This time white plays Be2 instead of the most popular Nf5 the classical variation. Now as usual castle, and white plays Bg5. I now recommend the same Na3. He plays Qd2 and now e5. His best option here is d5 and as always Nc5, a crucial move! This time he defends with f3 and he kinda understands what you want to do. And this time it's white who might attack our king but we will go for the queenside. Play a5. And pawn g4 play h6 and if he takes the pawn then win with the following trap....

And now let's look at the Sämisch variation. Here instead of the classical or the everback white plays f3. Now castle and you see Be3. There are a plenty of way to play against this line as you saw in the picture but how I like play this is with c5. d5 e6 a pawn break and Qd2, exd5 cxd5. We end up in a position where you look to advance on the queenside but if you ain't able to make much progress there you need to fight for the centre with Nh5 and f5. And remember this thing. You should let the King's Knight of white land on f2 since then your knight won't be able to go to g4 and if supports e4 making f4 an option. So that's why don't just play Nd7 which allows Nh3 because the bishop can't that the pony anymore. So instead play moves like Re7 and you are great.

Incase if you are wondering when I said white will play d5 what if white takes. The You take back even if you are down you still have enough compensations. 

There is another sideline in the Sämisch and that is when white decides to keep the tension with let's say Ne2. Then play as follows...

Alright, now let's look at a line which is called the four pawns attack. Here instead of pushing the pawn 1 square which is the Sämisch variation white does it two squares. It is obvious why it is the name as you can see four pawns are on the centre. So, as usual, castle, and now they play Nf3 and as like in the Sämisch you play c5. They push forward and you basically play the sames as you do in the Sämisch. You play e6 Be2 takes and takes by white and you arrive at a similar position. In such positions, your light squared bishop ipcan be traded with the Knight on f3 and you shouldn't mind much about this trade. It is because We have a little space disadvantage and as you know knights are better that bishoos on closed positions because thapey cab hope around and trading is helpful in cramped positions. So, You play Bg4 then O-O then you play Knight d7 and if h3 trade the bishop ♝ with the knight ♞. Make sure you put your tower on the semi open d file, play for a6 and b5 which expands on the queenside. You can also play moves like c4 and Nc5. White on the other hand may play on the kingside. 

Now, let's look at another sideline which is the fienchetto  (I don't really know the  spelling, so if I am wrong please correct me in the comments) variation. Here, white plays g3 and like always you castle and they play Bg2, then you play d6 and after he play Nf6 to keep things simple we will play the same c5 move but before that let's play Nc6. The idea is we want white to play d5 and then play Na5, Qd3 by white and now you play c5 with a beautiful pawn chain. If instead he would have play O-O rather than d5 you play moves like a6 and b5 again. e4 Re8 g5 Na5. Whenever g5 move the Knight to a5.

Alright finally it is over, but there is one little thing I want to tell you guys. If you play this opening and they play the London, they will go for the Nc3 lines instead of the standard pawn pyramid stuff. And if you play moves like Bg7 you can get a little bit of trouble maupybe but anyways I will leave it to you guys to find a suitable system against the London.

Outro: 

So, well that's the end of the series and hope you enjoyed this blog, and the blog series and I really hope you learned something new from these blogs. Please share your thoughts in the comments and I see you in my next blogs.

BYE!!! 👋🏻